Cooking, baking and living in Accra: what's not to like?

Discovering sfoglia di mozzarella

Rome is hot this week, so the less cooking the better. Greek salad, caprese, prosciutto e melone, watermelon, lentil salads, peaches…. What to make for dinner? Wandering through our local supermarket, I met up with my husband, who was chatting to the cheese guy there, both looking at a large opaque bag. “Sfoglia di mozzarella”, said the cheese guy. A sheet of mozzarella? What to do you DO with that? So he told us: speck, rughetta, pomodorini, sale, pepe, olio. Layer, dress, roll, rest, slice and serve. Let’s try, we thought. Always fun to try something new.
This was inside the bag: a sheet of mozzarella. Drain it. Lay it out on cling film (which should have been oiled, my neighbour later said.)Layering on speck, about 200 grammes? One packet. This is a cured, smoked ham. Like prosciutto, but not quite the same.
Rughetta and pomodorini added in, with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and a little olive oil.
…… Then we rolled up the sheet, as if rolling a jelly roll or cinnamon bun dough. It probably should have been tighter, as the tomatoes were escaping on the edges.
Here it is, all wrapped up in clingfilm to rest in the fridge for a couple hours.
Sliced and ready to serve for antipasto. Rather fun! I had seen this in restaurants, but never made it before. This was not amazing mozzarella, but good as a cold starter, and a change from the usual insalata caprese, which is always lovely. The sheet of mozzarella can be used with a variety of fillings, like tuna, salmon or radicchio.

Notes: Depending on the filling, the mozzarella roll can also be heated before serving. I may try that when the summer heat has passed. If you can find some, have a go. Otherwise In cucina di Paola (in Italian) describes making the mozzarella sheet yourself: heat a ball of mozzarella in microwave or bain-marie, lay it between two sheets of baking parchment, and roll it out with a rolling pin. Very interesting!

This experiment is my contribution to Fiesta Friday 25, with many thanks to the hosts. Gorgeous selection of offerings there as usual!

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15 thoughts on “Discovering sfoglia di mozzarella”

Looks intriguing. Never come across sfoglia di mozzarella before, and you know I live in this part of the US with the highest concentration of Italiano. Would be fun to show up at an Italian friend’s potluck with this. 🙂

Yes, I thought it was interesting. It might work very well at a potluck with Italians, great idea! Lots of possibilities for filling this, and easy to prep in advance. We will have to tell the cheese counter guy his advice was excellent.

Thanks for the tip on how to make our own sfoglia in the microwave – I know I won’t find the real thing in any market around here. This would be an original dish for a summer buffet I am eager to try. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Yes, I am curious to try this again with really good mozzarella. We have a shop that gets fresh mozzarella di bufala from Campania every day, the flavour is quite different from the cow’s milk mozzarella. But the texture is less firm, so maybe a simpler mozzarella is the way to go. The Italian blog says “Prendere la mozzarella e metterla in un contenitore adatto al microonde. Farla sciogliere a 750w per circa 1 minuto e 15 secondi. Per chi non avesse il microonde penso si possa fare anche sul gas magari a bagnomaria.” Heat the mozzarella ball of 200-250 grammes for 1 min and 15 seconds at 750w. Or with gas cooker and bain-marie. Anyway, just enough to soften it enough to roll out. One or two balls might be needed. Have fun trying!